Open Forum

Hey everyone. We recently had a tragedy in our program. A 9th grade student who took drama classes and was part of the cast of our spring musical was hit by a car last week and died shortly thereafter. She was one of those students who you knew was going to make theatre something she did all four years. She had yet to be inducted into our troupe but was planning on doing so this semester. Is there any precedent for thespians inducted posthumously? Has anyone else done this and can offer advice as to what kinds of things they did to honor the student?

I have no words of advice to offer here, only heartfelt sorrow and sympathy for you and your students. Please know of our prayers for you. I will, however, follow the thread to see if any advice is offered. We had a student take her own life last summer. She had just completed her first year in our school and had done a great job as part of our spring musical. I'm not sure if this (post-humous induction to ITS) would be the best idea here but it's certainly worth consideration. 

My only thought against posthumous induction is that, as a parent, I cannot imagine how that magazine coming every month to my deceased daughter could possibly be endured.

I think acknowledging her achievements at the induction ceremony would be lovely.  You could even have an empty chair with a rose in it in place of where she would have sat in the ceremony. Perhaps you and your students have pictures that you could have printed and compiled into a book, along with students happy memories of her, to present to the parents at the induction ceremony.  Compiling the book of memories would be cathartic for the students, and the book would be a beautiful thing for the parents to keep.